We worked with our friends at Nobox to help brand the Campus Edition with a look & feel that would be suitably youthful without it feeling forced. They did a great job creating a bulletin board-style landing page (shown below) and a very eye-catching logo treatment.
For the copy, I had the idea of a tongue-in-cheek headline that placed the Campus Edition in the pantheon of essential college items, and since I’m way past the point of knowing this stuff for myself anymore, I drew on the expertise of Sarah Arora and the rest of the Mozilla summer interns for specifics. They provided a lot of great suggestions, and we settled on ramen noodles and shower shoes as the items mentioned on the landing page and back-to-school postcard, respectively.
I should also mention that we’re in the process of creating a Campus Edition poster, so if you’re a fan of this design check back here next week for instructions on how to get the high-res download. And if you’re recently back in school, or are heading there soon, send your friends here!
Now that the Mozilla Store is live, the next step is to get the word out to all the Mozilla and/or Firefox fans out there. This is really an ongoing project, of course, but here are some of the steps we’re taking to let people know about the launch:
* a new top-level Store tab on Mozilla.com. Previously the link to the Store was buried several layers deep, so this should raise its profile quite a bit.
* an announcement email (with a discount), to be sent later this week to people who have opted-in to receive Mozilla emails during the Store’s checkout process.
* blog posts from various influentialMozillians. (they did this out of the goodness of their hearts…no bribery was involved, I swear!)
* search marketing with Google and Yahoo
* a pack-in included with all orders that includes a thank you letter from Mitchell Baker on one side and a coupon for a discount on their next order on the other. Not everyone knows that all Store proceeds support the Mozilla Foundation, so we wanted to communicate this key point in Mitchell’s letter.
* an upcoming snippet on the main Firefox start page announcing the relaunch. This page is seen by tens of millions of worldwide users every day, so obviously this a good spot to spread the word.
As always, these projects were a joint effort led by David Rolnitzky, Rhian Baker, Sarah Arora and me. And thanks to Stephen Lowe for his design work on the email and pack-in.
A few weeks ago, JT and Beltzner presented their 12-point plan for improving Firefox retention. David Rolnitzky and I were tasked with point #5 – “Improve download and first run pages”, so I’m happy to say that we launched a new download page earlier today.
As a bit of context, this is the page that users see after they click the Download Firefox button, and it remains up throughout the entire download process. So, rather than just showing a promo for a messenger bag (which is what the previous version of the page did), our hypothesis is that users will be better served by seeing instructions (with visuals) on how to complete the installation process.
We plan to keep testing and evolving this page over time, so consider this more of a work in progress than a “final” page. Obviously the use of screenshots complicates the localization process, so we’re just launching the en-US version now while we actively try to figure out the best way to localize these pages worldwide. In addition to the Mac page shown here, we also created XP and Vista versions, and other OS’s may follow eventually.
Update 9/4/07: Several commenters correctly pointed out that this page wasn’t always viewable from certain key browsers. That was a known bug at the time we launched the page, and I’m happy to report that it was fixed last week.
Thanks to Alicia Patterson for her design work on the many iterations of this page.
Exciting news…David, Rhian, Sarah and I are happy to announce that the revamped, overhauled, better-than-ever Mozilla Store is now officially live.
I’ve done a couple of teaserposts about this, but now that there are no more secrets here’s a snapshot of what’s new:
* a new site design, courtesy of our friends at Nobox. We wanted a design that looked great, but didn’t feel like an overly slick e-commerce site, and they definitely delivered. (if the models look familiar, that’s because they’re all Mozilla employees and interns)
* a new user experience that reduces the number of clicks needed to get to what you want. For example, you no longer have to navigate through a country chooser page…instead the Store detects your location and directs you straight to the appropriate homepage. (for now the new Store is only available in North America, but the International Store will be getting the update soon)
* 12 brand new products, including seven t-shirts, some very cool stickers, and stuff featuring the ever-popular Kit.
* interactive features that let you comment on existing items (good or bad, let us know what you think) or suggest new products for the future. Your feedback will help us continue to make the Store better, so don’t be shy!
* a Community Spotlight program, which will feature tales from people in the community about their experiences wearing Mozilla gear. So if you’ve got a story to share, let us know.
* a Store Blog, with more info about the products, like comments from the designers about their inspiration for the t-shirt artwork.
All this, and there’s a discount too: use coupon code MOZILLASTYLE at checkout and you’ll get 10% off your order. Plus, all orders over $10 will also get a free Japanese-style sticker sheet full of Mozilla, Firefox and Thunderbird stickers.
If you’ve read this far, thanks for making it through the entire long post…now go check out the Store!
After a two month break, I’m trying to get back in the habit of posting a weekly MP3. Since it’s been so long, here are a couple of tracks from one of my favorite duos, Brian and Chris. The first, “Untitled” (happily the music is much more inspired than the song title), is off their album Vectors and the second, “Action Packed Vacation”, is off their latest one titled 3:
This is totally unrelated to Mozilla, but I wanted to spread the word that I’ve started another blog (because apparently I don’t have enough to do already). My friend Stephen Ursery and I are both longtime Arkansas Razorbacks fans, so we decided to channel our fan/nerd energies in a new direction. Since we’ve both lived out of the state for many years now, we’re using the expatriate thing as our angle.
I’m not expecting a huge overlap in interest between Mozilla and the Razorbacks, but if you’re a fan of college sports, check it out:
After weeks of relentless hype (ok, one blog post), I’m excited to announce that the Mozilla Store will be re-launching next week with a totally new site design, new merchandise and some new interactive features.
To whet your appetite for what’s in store, here’s a preview of one of the new items. This shirt was commissioned by our friends at Mozilla Japan to celebrate everyone’s favorite Firefox anime-style character, Foxkeh, and was created by a local Japanese artist to give it that authentic look:
Expertly modeled by Bret Reckard. Photo by David Rolnitzky.
You’ve very likely already read about Rock Your Firefox, the cool new Facebook app that enhances the Firefox Add-ons experience. What you haven’t read about until now is the previously secret Sesame Street connection.
As we were branding the program, Justin Scott wanted an eye-catching design that would make Rock Your Firefox stand out from all the other Facebook apps out there. We hit upon the idea of using a loud 70s graphic style to get our point across. I then contacted Lee Tom, a designer who did an excellent job of translating all my random thoughts and pop culture references into this:
One of the pop culture references I gave Lee as direction was this extremely groovy vintage Sesame Street clip. I’m probably dating myself here, but it was one of my favorite things as a kid and I was very happy to find it on YouTube several weeks ago (completely unrelated to this project). You’ll see the influence on Rock Your Firefox as you watch:
So that’s the story behind the story. And if you’re into this design, I should mention that Rock Your Firefox desktop wallpaper is available in several sizes here.
As Mozilla's Creative Director I work on Firefox branding, websites and other marketingish things. The intent of this blog is to cover all that and a little bit more.
